At a time when news organizations were facing unprecedented challenges and demands for change, the CJF Innovation Award recognized innovations that had a demonstrated impact in advancing the quality of journalism done by an individual news organization. In 2017, the winning news organization received a cash prize of $10,000, with thanks to the generous support of award sponsor Chevrolet.

Innovation was recognized in a wide range of fields, including (but not restricted to):
• new formats for audiences;
• different operating procedures within a newsroom;
• new storytelling techniques;
• a new product produced by the newsroom;
• the design and/or introduction of new technology;
• distinctive reporting strategies and techniques;
• new ways of engagement with audiences;
• involvement of the community in the news process; and
• partnerships or team approaches to reporting and producing stories.

While it could have taken more than a year from concept to implementation, the impact of the innovation must have occurred in the previous year. Judges had a particular interest in innovations that helped the news organization promote accuracy, social responsibility and accountability.

The CJF Innovation Award winner was announced at the annual CJF Awards at The Fairmont Royal York in Toronto.

Please contact CJF executive director Natalie Turvey should you have any questions.

PAST WINNERS

2017 - La Presse
With the financial difficulties facing newspapers worldwide, La Presse in 2013 sought to secure its future by developing La Presse+, a platform for a tablet-driven model, offering news for free in an attractive and accessible format. In 2016, as a result of La Presse+’s success, the newspaper ended its weekday print edition, making La Presse the first daily in the world to become fully digital during the week. More than 270,000 people consult La Presse+ daily, far more than its 1971 print peak of 221,250 copies.

2016 - Discourse Media Discourse Media, an upstart Vancouver-based independent media company, produces in-depth journalism about complex issues using collaborative approaches. During a transportation funding referendum in Metro Vancouver—when journalists had little access to usable data and the public had little context about the issue itself—Discourse Media obtained, analyzed and produced data to share among multiple newsrooms, resulting in its "Moving Forward" project. In one instance, Discourse partnered with academics to access datasets, such as that used in the Cost of Commute Calculator, which allowed users to punch in their commute and see a breakdown of the full cost to themselves and to society.

2015 - EmergentEmergent tackled the challenge of assessing the huge volume of social media information by checking the veracity of emerging stories, rumours and viral claims